A pilot error could have endangered the El Al flight to the United States with 300 passengers on board



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An El Al flight in March between Israel and the United States could have been endangered by an error in piloting the calculation of the mbad of the plane, according to a report released Monday by the largest investigator of the Ministry of Transport .

The report was about 027 El Al flying from Tel Aviv to Newark, whose busy staff was trying to quickly switch to the checklist before the flight to speed up an already late departure.

The investigator, concludes departmental investigator Yitzhak Raz in the report, has led the Boeing 787 Dreamliner pilot to dump about 40 tons of the estimated weight of the plane when he l? 39. seized in the flight computer.

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Due to the improper weight measurement, the ground crews did not have enough fuel on the aircraft, which could have destroyed the aircraft's automated take-off calculations, which could result in a tail scratch. on the ground or a loss of control the plane was in the air.

According to the Ministry of Transport and El Al, pbadengers have never been in danger because the automated security systems of the aircraft have come into action to compensate for the erroneous number entered by the pilot.

El Al planes on the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport on August 14, 2012. (Moshe Shai / Flash90)

In its report, however, the department characterized this error as a "serious incident" and noted that the security checks that could have detected this error had not been made or had been done in a hurry because the The plane arrived late from Hong Kong and was leaving as far as possible. an hour late in the United States.

Once the pilot entered the wrong weight of 128.6 tons for the aircraft without fuel, exactly 40 tons less than the correct figure of 168.6 tons, he found the error and has immediately tried to correct it. According to the report, the pilot thought that the correction had been successfully completed, but this was not recorded by the computer.

The ground crews then loaded too little fuel into the plane – enough to get it to Newark, but not as much as the safety margins demanded – the refueling report was then sent to the cabin crew for approval. The report, which is part of the system of cross-checks required prior to each flight, appears to have been ignored during the rush to depart, the ministry said.

As the plane was taking off dangerously, the autopilot compensated for the erroneous data and transported the plane and its 300 pbadengers safely.

The department's report attributed the lack of coordination and the lack of cross-security checks required for the incident.

A spokesman for El Al said in a statement to the press on Monday that the company "takes flight safety issues seriously. [ministry] According to the report, the captain immediately noticed the error and drew the right conclusions. El Al immediately reported the incident to the Civil Aviation Authority and the Chief Investigator of the Ministry of Transportation. It is important to note that at no time were pbadengers or aircraft in danger. El Al conducted a thorough investigation of the incident and updated its procedures and training for all of the company's pilots. "

The company said that she "considers flight safety as our paramount value".

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